A near-complete collapse in support for Ukip, in which all its MEPs lost their seats, has cast doubts over whether the party will continue as a viable political entity.
The pro-Brexit party suffered a drop of more than 24 percentage points in its vote share as supporters deserted it in droves for the Brexit party led by the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage.
The party’s current leader, Gerard Batten, lost the seat he has held since 2004 in the European parliament’s constituency of London, where the party finished in seventh place.
Batten, who has led the party towards embracing far-right positions, will draw a pension from the EU budget, which pays MEPs 3.5% of their salary for every year worked.
In the South West, once a Ukip stronghold where two MEPs were elected for it in 2014, the party received just 53,739 votes. Its failed candidates there included Carl Benjamin, a self-styled provocateur and alt-right YouTube personality who was second on its South West regional list and was being investigated by police for speculating about whether he would rape the Labour MP Jess Phillips.
In Scotland, where the party won more than 10% of the vote five years ago and took one seat in the European parliament, its share of the vote dropped to 1.8%. Its list for the Scotland constituency included another controversial figure with an online following, Mark Meechan, who was fined £800 last year for teaching a dog to do a Nazi salute to phrases such as “Sieg Heil” and “gas the Jews”.
Across Britain, the party which was once a driving force behind David Cameron’s decision to call a referendum in the face of haemorrhaging Tory support, achieved a vote share of 3.3%.
While Batten was keeping a low profile on Monday, the party’s Twitter account congratulated Farage and the Brexit party, adding it had been “a bad night for Ukip but a good night for the country”.
“It’s time for reflection and planning and figuring out how we can all best serve our country.”
It's been a bad night for UKIP but a good night for the country. It's time for reflection and planning and figuring out how we can all best serve our country.
— UKIP (@UKIP) May 27, 2019
However, Batten was already facing calls to resign from Mike Hookem, who lost his seat as an MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber. He said the leader’s movement of party policies “into the fringes of British politics” had been a disaster.
Hookem, who said he would be running for the leadership, lambasted Batten for associating with the anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
Those speculating that the result would mean the end of the party, which had 24 MEPs elected in 2014, included its former deputy leader David Bannerman, who rejoined the Tories in 2011. Suzanne Evans, a former deputy chair, told the BBC the collapse of the Ukip vote had come as no surprise after Batten had led the party in a “very nasty far-right direction”.
